HIMSS16 Welcomes New Era of EMRAM

The HIMSS EMRAM, the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, entered the scene about 10 years ago and had a profound impact on health IT. When I hear EMRAM, ‘change’ comes to mind. Although change is often thought of in a negative way, it doesn’t have to be.

The EMRAM has pushed hospitals to make changes to the way they document and share patient information. I am a supporter of helping hospitals move to HIMSS Stage 7 because I see value in the changes that are part of the EMRAM guidelines. I have seen medication errors decrease due to closed loop medication administration and clinical decision support. Coordinated care between clinicians is now the standard and not the exception thanks to technology and change.

This year is my 35th anniversary as a nurse. I remember the challenges of paper charts. The days when I needed the chart to reference something but another clinician had the chart—sometimes for hours. It was challenging at times to get a total picture of the patient from the fragmented paper record. Much of our information that was shared was through verbal communication, not written anywhere for reference.

The early days of electronic medical records (EMR) were exciting to me. I could actually look on the computer and see if my patient’s blood pressure had been running high during the night or when they last experienced pain. However, there were still gaps in data. I couldn’t always see X-ray results, photos of wounds or the home medication list. Change brought us from paper to the EMR, and change is here again to take us a step further.

Bringing all clinical data into one view for our clinicians is that step. Giving physicians, nurses and therapists the ability to view all photos, X-rays, reports and documentation from the context of the EMR is a change that contributes to safer and more affordable healthcare.

Join me for a lunch and learn session at HIMSS16, where John Hoyt, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics, will discuss upcoming revisions to the EMRAM:

As a registered nurse for more than 30 years, Lorna Green, RN, BSN, worked in a number of healthcare environments – including ICU, Surgery, Home Health and Medical/Surgical Units and as a school nurse – before transitioning to informatics and Health Information Technology in 1999.
As Hyland’s Healthcare Informatics Executive Advisor, Lorna provides thought leadership and expertise of the regulations, solutions and trends impacting the informatics discipline within healthcare industry, specializing in clinical processes and quality measures, the Joint Commission standards, Meaningful Use, Interoperability and the HIMSS Analytics EMR adoption model.
Lorna earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Valdosta State University in Georgia. She joined Hyland in 2010 as a Senior Business Consultant.

1 Response

I could not agree more with the points made and might add that this conmtmeary represents a recognition of the need for attention to a concept which I first described 5 years ago, which I termed Thoughtflow. Thoughtflow is designed as the process by which clinicians access, assess, prioritize and act upon data a process that must be supported by vendor product designers with the help of experienced practitioners (the only ones who truly understand clinician needs) in order to foster full adoption and acceptance of technology that supports their work. We consider Thoughtflow to be so essential to successful adoption of clinical technologies that we have trademarked the term, and it is the basis of the consulting work on behalf of healthcare IT vendors done by our company.